Christmas Shopping

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We had a nice first day of our zimovanje (winter holiday in Serbian). Nadia, Owen, and Ocean are shown above in downtown Belgrade. We did some shopping (kupovina) for Christmas. We stopped at the Turbo Limac, a toy store, similar to Toys R’ Us but smaller. I think it is Croatian.

It was very cold yesterday with below freezing temperatures. It snowed again last night, adding an inch or two. It truly is a winter wonderland.

Owen is not feeling well, with occasional fever and headaches. We went to the US Embassy commissary also. Oliver had a birthday party at his friend Oscar’s house.

Happy Birthday Owen

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Cutting the Cake, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

With the rush of the end of the semester this past week, I didn’t have time to do a blog post on Owen’s birthday. He turned seven last Sunday and in honor of the occasion, we invited some of his close friends for a day at the Usče Mall here in Belgrade. It was the hyper mega Usce day with five hours of fun. We did it all, with bowling, dance competition, playland, food court, and movie. Owen and this friends loved it.

For posterity, Matija had the high bowling score of 97. Riana had the high on the other lane of 79. Owen bowled a 60 and Oliver bowled a 64. We watched the movie, Planet 51 dubbed in Serbian. The winners of the dance competition were the employees of the bowling center and the crowd gathered around watching. Very talented and entertaining kids.

I can’t believe it has been seven years since the birth of Owen. He is growing up too fast!!!! Happy birthday big boy, we love you.

Below is a short video of Oliver dancing. The boy has some moves and tons of charisma and charm.

Christmas is Coming

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This week we had a nice Christmas party at one of my colleague’s home in Belgrade. The administration team was celebrating the end of the semester and the start of the holidays. We have three glorious weeks of freedom and time for family. All of us are really looking forward to taking a break and Nadia and I can’t wait to spend lots of time with the kids.

Above is a photo from the party of the children of some of the admin team. We had a really nice night and lots of laughs.

I hope to blog extensively during the holiday.

Left to right in the photo are Sophie, Ocean, Eve, Ollie, Nick, Matija, and Owen.

Snow Continues in Belgrade

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Our Yard - Wednesday Evening

Snow is still falling as I write this late Thursday evening. Above, I snapped a photo of our yard on Wednesday evening. I shoveled the side walk, driveway, and steps and then walked out in the yard and snapped some photos. This is the most snow I have seen in Belgrade in my year and a half of living here. Today I managed to finally put on the snow tires on our car. It really makes a difference! We have struggled to get the car out of the garage and to a major street. The snow plows do not come down smaller streets here in Senjak, partly because of all of the cars parked on streets. They do a good job of the main roads. 

Ocean Helps Tata Shovel

Ocean loves the “sneg” as she calls snow in the Serbian language. She helped me shovel Wednesday evening. It looks like it has snowed another inch tonight, and at this rate the accumulation will be another 2-3 inches by morning. Perfect timing for the snow as Christmas is approaching and our school holidays start tomorrow afternoon.

Big Snowfall in Belgrade

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Owen, Ollie, Mom, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

It started snowing Monday afternoon, and as I sit here and write this on Wednesday morning, the flurries are still lightly coming down. We probably have 8-12 inches of accumulated snow. The official weather service of Serbia measures 32 centimeters this morning with more to come in the next several days. This is the second snowfall of the year, first one in December. After so many years in the tropics, we are all excited for the change of seasons and we plan to take full advantage of the snow and winter. We can hopefully do some sledding this weekend! 

Above, the family is going to school yesterday morning. As you can see by the top of Eidelweiss, our trusted family car, it had snowed quite a bit Monday night. There is even more accumulated today.  It doesn’t snow here to often and the city does not plow the streets well. Only the main roads are clear and so near our house, it is tough going. Of course I don’t have our snow tires on yet! They are sitting in the trunk of the car and I hope to do this soon. I’ll take some more pictures today as it is absolutely beautiful, we snow on the trees and covering everything. 

 

Christmas Show ISB 2009

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Owen Dancing Michael Jackson, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

Last Thursday evening Owen and Oliver performed in the annual Winter Show put on by the International School of Belgrade. Above, Owen is performing with his buddies in his first grade class. The music teacher introduced the boys to the music of Michael Jackson and they danced to “Black or White.” It has been a MJ festival in the Kralovec house as that is all that they want to listen to. Both the boys are good dancers. I encouraged Owen to continue with his “boy band.”

Oliver really has rhythm especially for a four year old. He wasn’t able to demonstrate that during the show, but at Owen’s party yesterday, he was the star. More on that later.

Ollie Performs

Visit to the Roma Settlement in Rakovica

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Roma Children, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

Monday a delegation from our school visited the Roma Settlement in Rakovica, a suburb of Belgrade. The purpose of the visit was to deliver clothes and to entertain the children of the settlement. The High School Choir sang and we brought a truck load of clothes that were donated by the school community.

This settlement is one of several places that the Roma people that lived under the Gazelle Bridge were moved to. Earlier this fall, the large, Gazelle Bridge, makeshift village was plowed under by city officials. With the help of the United Nations and other organizations, new settlements were found for the approximately 20,000 people living there.

I spoke with a government social worker who helps the families in the settlment we visited. She said that the municipality of Rakovica donated the land. Rakovica is a suburb of Belgrade located on the south side of Kostunjak Park. It is a heavy industrial area and we noticed many factories near the site. There was also what appeared an older Roma settlement on the hill above the site. Trailers donated for 37 families. Each trailer has electricity, plumbing, and running water. All utilities are free.  The Bread of Life, a non-governmental organization provides one hot meal a day for the community. The site is near one of the regular city bus routes into the city where children go to school and adults can go to work. 

The trailers are well kept by the families.

 

The Roma people have been an endless source of fascination for me and the family. Most are very poor and we see them often picking through the garbage for cardboard, plastic, etc. I spoke with several Roma community members and they are quite happy with trailers and the new living conditions. Much improved from the slum they were living at, although they are a bit further out of the city. One of the community leaders was concerned about the values of the children and wanted the school to help with giving the message to the Roma children the importance of education. From what I have read about Roma, and from talking with the social worker, part of this is cultural. Roma have a difficult time adapting to Western cultural values of employment, delayed gratification, and long-term thinking. They were all very friendly and welcoming to us. 

Photo from October 2008 of the Gazelle Bridge Roma Slum

 

It was great for our students to see the other side of life. We have an affluent community, and it is important to develop in our students, a community conciousness. I am a firm believer in a judgement of a society is how it treats its lowest members. The Roma need to be taken care of and supported so future generations can integrate into modern society and contribute to the good of Belgrade and Serbia. The generosity of our community was outstanding. A huge amount of clothes were donated. So much so, that some will be delivered to various places needing it. We also work with an orphanage near the school and we’ll be visiting them next week. The choir sang in a large trailer that serves as a community center (photo above).  The Roma children enjoyed the music and it brightened up the day for the mothers and children. I noticed a lot of people hanging around on a Monday, especially men, and that may indicate that many are not working or have steady jobs. 

I hope that our school and me personally can do more for the Roma and the poor and needy of Belgrade.

Serbia World Cup Draw

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Last Friday the World Cup Soccer draw took place. There was a lot of hype and attention on the event, as everyone was hoping for an easy draw. I was most interested in Serbia’s group and this post is an analysis of their chances of winning the World Cup. 
I think people put too much emphasis on which group their team gets placed into. I look at it like it doesn’t matter when you face the tough opponents, whether in your group or in following rounds, eventually you are going to have to beat a quality opponent. For each group of 4, the top two qualify. Then the 16 teams in the 8 groups advance to the single elimination bracket. Qualifying from an easy group, a team will likely play a tough opponent in the knockout round of 16.
Serbia’s group is one of the tougher groups of the eight. Of course, the favorite is Germany. The Germans have been in the championship game 7 times in their history and have won three World Cups. The team cruised through its qualifying group, easily defeating Russia and Finland. The team once again is solid, with Chelsea star Michael Ballack leading the way. Germany’s discipline, physical play, and talent will be hard to beat.
Serbia is ranked second in the group on paper, but I would say that all three teams are just about even.  Ghana is a country of 23 million and are a traditional African power, winner several African Cups over the years. “The Black Stars” recently won the Under-20 World Cup and last World Cup, made it out of the first round, losing to Brazil 0-3 in the round of 16. The team features another Chelsea superstar, midfielder, Michael Essien, and also, former Vojvodina FK coach, and Serb, Milovan Rajevac is the coach. 
Australia qualified through Asia for the first time. Usually they compete in the Oceania group, but wanted tougher competition to prepare for the Cup. They beat Japan to get in, and their star is Tim Cahill, from Everton. 
Serbia has a good of chance as anyone. They won a tough qualifying group, finishing higher than France, Austria, and Romania. They have top league European based players, with the star being Nemanja Vidic for Manchester United. They looked out classed against France however, and I fear that both Germany and Ghana, may have a faster game than the Serbs. I do feel good with Vidic in the back, and the Serbs do play tough soccer. 
If they do get through, they will have to play either #1 or #2 of group C which features England, USA, Algeria, and Slovenia. Suppose they finish second, they could play England. The winner then plays either group 1 winner France or group 2 runner-up Argentina. That would put them in the semifinals. As you can see, it will be very tough odds for Serbia to win it all. 
There has only been a small number of teams that have won the World Cup in recent years. Realistically, the winner will be Brazil (192 million), Germany (82 million), Italy (60 million) England (50 million) France (62 million). The Netherlands, with 16.5 million, is the smallest country to consistently appear in the semifinals. Note that Croatia did make it to the 1998 semifinals which is an anomaly. My idea would be to have a large nation and a small nation World Cup. Set it at say 20 million, and nations with a population smaller than that would compete in one tourney and larger nations in the other. You could even have the winners meet. I know other factors come into play other than population, like coaching, financial support, youth programs, etc, but long-term, the chances of a very small nation winning it are remote. There are many smaller nations with excellent soccer, like Denmark, Paraguay, Portugal, etc. that would make for an interesting World Cup, small division. There is a nice article in the Wall Street Journal that has similar thoughts to my ideas. 
I would also modify the game of soccer to allow more goals. Because the extreme difficulty of scoring goals, too many games come down to a lucky bounce or an acting dive in the penalty box. I don’t like to watch a game where one team dominates play the entire game and then loses with one counter attack that results in a goal. The modifications I propose would be larger goals, more lenient offsides rule, stricter penalties for players faking a trip (automatic red card and forced to wear a pink tutu for the rest of the season or tourney), etc. I would rather see games finish 8-7 than 0-0 and a team wins with penalty kicks. 
Anyway, I’ll enjoy watching the games in June and there will be a lot of excitement here in Serbia. Living an expat global nomad lifestyle, I have several alligences to other teams including Australia and the USA. My South American teams did not qualify this time (Colombia, Bolivia, and Venezuela). 

 

Hiking On Mount Avala

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This past weekend I was alone with the kids as my wife went to Budapest with girl friends. On Sunday I took the kids out to Mount Avala for a morning of adventure. It is only 18 kilometers outside of Belgrade and a nice day trip.

This is our second time there, and we found some areas away from the monuments that were great for kids. It was a foggy day (the fog seems to stay around Belgrade for days) and with the woods had a special feel to them. We played hide and seek in the trees near the monument as well as hiked some of the trails going down the mountain. A highlight was going through a tunnel that ran under the road near the Roman mine shaft. The mountain is a former island in the Pannonian Sea, and was always a focal point for people heading to Belgrade. The name “avala” means obstacle or shelter in Turkish. Both the Ottomans and Romans settled the area. 

There are plenty of trees, herbs, and wildflowers to identify and the kids loved it, so we will definitely be back. They are reconstructing the TV tower that NATO took out ten years ago. It will have a restaurant and tourists will be able to go up to enjoy the view.

Serbian Parliament

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Serbian Parliament Building, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

I took this photo on last Friday’s field trip to the ivo Andric museum. Both the Parliament building and Andric’s former apartment on on Pioneer’s Park. It was a beautiful sunny morning. This week has been grey and rainy. Temperatures are in the 40’s and 30’s (F) and the sun is supposed to be back on Friday. It looks like temperatures will dip below freezing next week and I am hoping for snow. 

Serbia’s parliament has one house called the National Assembly consisting of 250 members. That is one representative for every 26,000 Serbian citizens. I don’t know how that compares to other countries, but it seems to be a bit of overkill. The school is planning on having some of our older students serve internships in the parliament next semester through an international NGO. I am looking forward to that. The public can visit the parliament on the last Saturday of each month. I would like to do that with the boys.